Despite what you might think given the title, this whole first episode was set in the countryside and did not feature any ravens…
From what I understood of the plot, Tokyo Ravens is going to be mainly about a boy and a girl named Harutora and Natsume. These two people are descendants of Abe no Seimei, greatest Omnyoji of history ever, and one of them is supposed to take over. Thankfully in this world there are still Omnyoji and they have various jobs to do. (Like, protecting the world for example)
Aside from the fact that I seriously do not understand why they titled it as such (yet?) that kind of plot is exactly the sort of anime I dig. I watched this first episode eagerly, bracing myself for yokai and magic fights. I ended up getting a very sexual young girl (apparently also a very strong onmyoji) wanting to kill Natsume (mistaking Harutora for her …) with a mecha.
Don’t laugh. I am serious.
All of this to say that Tokyo Ravens is probably not going to be the kind of onmyoji series I was expecting to watch. It does not make it any less interesting, it actually is the reason why it is interesting. It got me curious. The only problem is that mixing up genres so far away from each others can be either very well down and I will praise this anime to no end or a very huge mistake. Well, at the very least it is original. I cannot say any less.
If the plot fails, I still will have the ordinary succession battles that come with the traditional aspect of Japan.
If that fails too, because succession problems are only interesting for a little while, at the very least I will have nice characters to watch interact.
I cannot say I liked Natsume, she has a very big “ojou-sama” feel about her, not that we saw her a lot, she is supposed to live in Tokyo after all. (Yes, the city was mentionned, but only in passing …).
Harutora is a bit dumb and has a very rebelious feeling about him, his “girlfriend” seems annoying and nothing special, the crazy sexual young onmyoji (seriously, she looked like she was no more than 15, she probably is even less I have not checked) does seem a bit one dimensionnal.
She still made me curious about her plot. Another one that made me curious is Harutora’s friend, he seems to know quite a lot and Harutora seems to trust him a bit too much for a guy who has not lived there for more than a year.
All in all? This is a curiosity. I will keep on watching because that exactly is the kind of stuff I like, but at the same time I will be wary of failure.
